ClixPrestige

Pokemon Go!

How exciting is this new free to play location-based mobile reality game! I finally was able to download it to my android device on Thursday 14th July 2016. I have done lots of walking since then and find the game is great for getting into shape for summer. My kids love it too and although Pokemon wasn't something they grew up with being 5 and 13 they are still keen to play the game and catch some Pokemon. My 20-year-old son, however, was a massive fan who used to have about a million Pokemon cards( a bit of an exaggeration) and he knew more about Pokemon than he did about anything else so he is loving the whole Pokemon Go craze!

Here is a list of instructions to help you understand and be able to play Pokemon Go!

When you find your phone buzzing or shaking there will be a Pokemon about!

View the Pokemon using your mobile device camera and gyroscope, it can be displayed as if it is in the real world or you can switch it (little button in the top left corner) to a background screen ,this is easier to see your Pokemon when catching them!

Carefully hold your finger down on Poke ball and aim,( this is the red white and black ball in the middle bottom of your screen), at the Pokemon and try and hit the middle circle by flicking the Poke Ball at the Pokemon, catch it and trap it in the ball. You have now caught your first Pokemon!

Depending on how well your Poke ball hits your Pokemon you will be awarded XP candies and stardust this helps you level up your Pokemon and evolve them.

When you are walking around searching you will see leaves scattering around, this is a sign that a Pokemon is hiding, walk towards the leaves catch another Pokemon.

Be careful not to waste your Poke balls, look on your map it will show you where the nearest Poke stops are to retrieve more Poke balls.

Visit Poke stops to get more Poke balls and rare Pokemon eggs that you can incubate and hatch when you have enough points. Poke Stops show up on your map when you walk up to it a big ball appears and you simply have to spin it by flicking the picture in the ball on the screen. Depending on how lucky you are, you never know how many Poke balls you will receive or which rare egg if any at all. There are plenty of Poke Stops around to get more items, you will need to wait about 7-10 minutes before you can collect more items from the same Poke stop.

When you have caught lots of Pokemon you level up, when you are level 5 you can go to Poke Gym's which are also located on your map. Here you can battle and join one of 3 teams (Red-Team Valor, Blue- Team Mystic and Yellow- Team Instinct).

When a player enters a Poke Gym that is controlled by a player that is not part of their team, they can challenge the leader of the gym to lower the gym's prestige to zero and take control of the Poke Gym by depositing a Pokemon to defend it. You will need strong Pokemon to win! You will get coins when your Pokemon wins these battles, you can use these coins to buy items for your Pokemon from the online shop which is also in your app.

Only candies are needed to evolve a Pokemon, and they all have their own type of candy which can be used to evolve or level up.

It is best to be patient and wait till your about a level 20 and above before you start to use your stardust to power them up and evolve, the longer you wait the stronger your Pokemon will be and you then have more chance at winning the battles.

If you have lots of the same Pokemon, you can transfer the Pokemon back to the Pokemon professor and you will gain more candy and space for more Pokemon.

To evolve your Pokemon you will need to tap the Poke ball at the bottom of your screen and tap Pokemon, here you will see all your Pokemon you have caught, tap on one for two options of power up or evolve. Power up allows you to train your Pokemon to increase its combat power and health points by a very small amount and evolve allows you to transform your Pokemon into a different, upgraded species.

When you evolve your Pokemon they become much stronger, you may have to evolve them once or twice before they reach their final form.

Remember stardust is used to power up and candy is used to power up and to evolve!

You get 100xp for catching a Pokemon, 500xp for the first Pokemon you catch, 10xp for landing a difficult throw, 50xp for stopping at a poke stop and 500xp for evolving a Pokemon,

Each time you power up a Pokemon it will require more stardust for more strength next time and different types of Pokemon require different amounts of candy to evolve. The candy needs to be the same type as the Pokemon you're wanting to evolve, to do this you will need to catch lots of the same Pokemon over and over again.

There are 151 Pokemon to catch and evolve.

Remember to be careful when out and about hunting for Pokemon, don't get lost in the game and forget your surroundings and of course don't forget to keep an eye on your children.